In The Garden Right Now

Since the more hostile temperatures of the Phoenix summer have dropped considerably, things are really starting to spring to life in the garden!

It’s still early for some things, since I just sowed them, but others are really coming into their own now and we’re starting to be able to have a few things here and there for our meals again!

Here are some photos of a few of the things that are growing in our garden!

 

Some of my trusty pots!

You can see the Holy Basil on the left back, then a tomato plant that has really started giving us tomatoes last week and seems quite prolific, then to the right we have a pumpkin plant climbing up. It has just starting with a lot of male flowers, but no sign of the females just yet. There are also two kinds of sunflowers in that pot. Next to the holy basil, much lower so you can’t see it, is also some lovage just starting to come through and some winter savory making an appearance!

In front, from the left, we have peppermint and a tomato plant that surprisingly made it through our hostile summer and has just started to green up again. Next to it we have a rosemary, that also made it through the summer and about doubled in size while doing it!

 

 

 

This is my herb spot. The ones you can see prominently are the Lemon Verbena and the Cinnamon Basil. They made it through the summer too and have kept the pollinators happy! What you don’t see are the smaller herbs inside the bed which range from parsley, chives, oregano, rosemary, tarragon to a couple of Mexican herbs I’ve never grown before but was interested in trying. Most of these aren’t quite as tall yet and don’t peek over the wall yet! Far on the left is a grape vine that I picked up at the beginning of our summer as a mostly dead plant. I thought I might just try and see if it will survive. It did - and it has tripled in size and has lost more leaves on it. Hopefully it will continue to do well and we might have some homegrown grapes in a couple of years or so!

 

 

These are my latest raised beds. They are only about 5 weeks old. and they are pretty much in full sun during the summer months. So, these beds will be exclusively spring and fall beds and will be solarized during the summer months! But right now It’s really springing to life!

 

 

We have cucamelons starting to trail up the bamboo, strawberries, cinnamon basil, bok choy, the first lettuce seedlings peeking through and some zucchini starting to bloom.

 

 

Another section of the raised bed along the wall. We have all sorts of goodness happening here! The cucumber plant sustained some sun damage, but it’s given us our first cucumber just a few days ago, so it seems to be doing fine. We also have some tomato and tomatillo plants getting their bloom on in there, as well as some zucchini plants throwing out a lot of blossoms! In the middle front I have some more herbs.
Stevia, onion chives and dill.

Over in the corner You can just see the boxes against the wall where I have butternut squash and corn stalks growing.

 

 

We also have a couple of spaghetti squash on the vine.

 

 

The Malabar spinach is climbing all over the place and starting to bloom.

 

 

The eggplants are going for another round!

 

 

I planted several kinds of zucchini this year! It will be interesting to see which ones do well in fall here!

 

 

The promise of another variety of melon! I have Water melons, musk melon, cantaloupe and one other one whose name escapes me right now growing in the garden! The cantaloupes are almost ripe enough to pick!

 

 

I have never grown sesame before, but my husband brought home a couple of  sesame starters a few weeks or so ago and I was intrigued.  Since it was still pretty hot, I wasn’t sure how well this would fare.

Well, judge for yourself!

 

 

Yup! Apparently they like it!

In that same box I have some more “exotic” things going on.

Horseradish - also something that doesn’t seem to mind the heat! Who knew! I planted that one right at the height of the summer heat, because that is when it was available. I just hoped it would make it. Seems it’s doing just fine, even though the heat does slow the growth. It’s starting to get much bigger now though, so it’s catching up!

 

 

Next to the Horseradish I have some ginger. Grown from store bought organic ginger! Seems it’s doing ok!

It took a while to start growing too through the heat, but despite some heat damage on the leave tips,  it seems to be really coming into it’s own.

 

 

Next to the ginger I am growing some Turmeric! Turmeric has a fantastic array of health benefits, but it’s so hard to find fresh! So, I planted this from organic store bought turmeric too and like the ginger, it seems to be doing ok, even though it sustained a little bit of heat damage on the leaves initially!

 

 

Harvest time will be interesting in this box - I can’t wait!

 

 

I have a variety of peppers throughout my garden, but oddly enough, I’ve never been all that successful with bell peppers. This is somewhat of a last ditch attempt to grow some. If it doesn’t work either, then I think I’ll just take bell peppers off my list of things to grow! This one is however looking pretty good, so may we’ll get some this season after all!

I have managed to grow arugula and small Swiss chard throughout the summer in a semi shaded bed, and the newly sowed lot is just coming through now too!

 

 

I managed to get a little Pomegranate cutting a few weeks ago and decided to propagate it! Seems it has worked pretty well, as it’s now about triple the size and growing every day!

 

 

We’ve already had a handful of strawberries from our new plants last week, and it looks like there are many more to come!

 

 

Our potatoes on the right are almost ready to harvest.  The ones on the left were replanted from the coffee sack that fell apart on me. They are later ones, so we won’t get those out until around thanksgiving time!

 

 

Some more pots on our patio! The pomegranate in the very back, then a little kumquat. Obscured by the dried up lavender (didn’t make it through the summer but I’m letting the flowers dry) is a tiny 2 inch fig “tree”.

 

 

Further to the front is the lemon grass I regrew from grocery store lemon grass. Couldn’t believe how easy that was!

 

 

To the side are a couple of baby Aloe Veras that I removed from the larger one I have in my herb raised bed. And to the front there’s a pot with a variety of native wild flowers that are about to bloom.

 

That’s a small glimpse of some of our garden right now! What is still growing, or if you are in the low desert, what’s just beginning to grow in your garden?